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August 26, 2004

Not seeing the forest due to the trees

Most people cannot see the forest or reality due to the trees of propaganda. Everyone is selling education as the cure all for what ills the nation in regards to socioeconomics and class stratification. However, the reality is that the demand in the economy for college educated people is much less than the demand in the economy for non college graduates.

Supply does not create demand, is the general rule here. Approximately 25% of the jobs in the economy require a college degree. What would happen if 75% of working age adults held college degrees, when only 25% of the jobs being demanded by the economy were commiserate with a college degree? Well, anyone with a cursory understanding of the laws of supply and demand would realize that the value of a college degree would reduce greatly. A glut of Engineers and professionals would simply bid down the salaries and wages of those professions in a free market.

Not only that, what who would perform the 75% of jobs that did not require a college degree, when only 25% of the working age populous did not hold such a degree? One would expect that the law of supply and demand would in turn increase wages at the low end; however, many of these businesses would go out of businesses because they can only maintain profitability with cheap sources of labor. If they increased their prices to pay workers more, demand for their products would fall and they would again not be profitable.

In light of this, even if it is not a conspiracy, it is certainly in the interest of the elites to maintain failure in the system, so as to properly match the supply of labor with the demands for labor in the economy. The group that would have the most to lose are the currently educated (college degreed) working age adults, which is something like 22% of the working age population. That means that the supply of educated workers has not reached equilibrium with demand. This keeps the salaries and wages of such workers higher than if the market was in equilibrium and extremely higher than they would be if 50% of the working age population had college degrees. Do you think it is in their interest to have increased competition reduce their salaries and wages?

The bottom line is that the system is WORKING, by producing so many failures, which then are matched with low paying jobs that needs such workers to be profitable. If the majority of the working age populous held college degree, but were funneled into low end jobs due to not enough jobs for college graduates in the economy, social revolt against the system would manifest. An electrical engineer saying, “Welcome to McDonald’s…May I take your order”, would result in having the system overhauled.

One is more competitive than not with an education, but lack of education is not the cause of class and social stratification in America. Rather, it is simply a mostly false justification for it, by the elites.

6 Comments:

It is no accident Noah, but if we say it is a conspiracy people look at us with suspicion. I was talking to a female friend of mine, beautiful sista. She is unemployed right and staying home to raise her baby girl, we were discussing job opportunities and so on. Sista has a masters degree, received it in the late nineties and have yet to land a job making over 40k a year. This is the sad reality of the job market today.

Most jobs can be mastered via a technical school but most technical schools have disappeared. This whole discussion provides clarity to the fact that people ascribe or give the system credit for their success and their success is proof the system works, but for some reason the system escapes any blame it should receive for producing failures. How can the system be credited with all things good, when the bad out number the good substantially?

The effect of High black unemployment is usually attributed to the cause of internal factors, most notably laziness, by the larger society. However, when unemployment rates for whites are high, it is normally attributed to external factors, most notably, changes in the economic cycle of the nation.

Scott, you have a penchant for agreeing with my conclusions, yet, you also have a penchant for attempting to discredit how I arrive at such conclusions. Let me ask you, my black brother for Bush, how do I keep arriving at the truth if my means of deduction and inference are invalid? It’s not like I am coming to these conclusion via some other means, then simply presenting pseudo science BS, as you say, as the logical link between my premise and conclusion. That does not make sense.

Likely, Scott, you simply have a problem accepting how the truth becomes the truth. You can accept the truth of what is, however, your politics and bias keeps you from accepting what creates the truth.

"n its simplest form, Occam's razor states that explanations should never multiply causes without necessity. When two explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable. If a charred tree is on the ground, it could be because of a lightning strike or because of a secret government weapons program. The simplest explanation that is sufficient is the logical one, according to Occam's razor, and there was a lightning strike."

Occams Razor is a theory and is not absolute, In fact it is more of a suggestion than anything. It simply says if presented with a problem we suggest you believe this over that without giving any reason other than it is the simplest of reason and one that require less intellectual inquiry or is the lazy way of doing things.